How to stop cheating and grant fraud (continued)

Founded in 2007, Biometric Signature ID is a Lewisville, Texas-based company. In excess of 70 clients and nearly 2 million users in all 50 states and approximately 60 countries currently utilize the company’s biosignature software.

Here, identification is accomplished by having students handwrite four letters or numbers within a confined space on a webpage by moving their mouse, stylus or dragging their finger across their smartphone screen. The software assesses the unique pattern of length, angle, speed, height, number of strokes and stores the information in an encrypted database. This data is compared to patterns collected by the user’s subsequent logins, confirming that the person who registered is the same person trying to access the account.

Beyond their high degree of specificity, the latest biosignature systems offer something that few other verifications methodologies benefit from. That is: the complete hosting of the process outside the academic institution’s business system. In effect, such systems represent a turnkey option.

“Probably the most compelling reason for selecting the biosignature means of verification is that we did not need to download any processing software; nor do the students,” concurs Watson. “Given that we provide courses to many members of the armed forces, they certainly could not download any software since the military, understandably, closely guards access to their computers.”

Going one step further, some biosignature systems provide suspicious activity reports to the academic institution, notifying them of potential fraudulent activity such as enlisting someone else to take a final exam.